LITMIR.BIZ

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back.’ Derwent stood in the doorway of number 27, liberated from his paper suit, his shirtsleeves rolled up. He was still wearing shoe covers, and his standard mocking expression.

      ‘Shouldn’t I be saying welcome back to you?’ I said.

      ‘That would have been nice. I don’t think I even got a hello, did I?’

      ‘Hello.’ I looked past him. ‘What’s going on?’

      ‘Kev’s blood lady is here. She says she’ll be a couple of hours at least – she’s got to draw a map of all the blood spatter. Easier to map the places that aren’t covered in blood.’

      ‘If Kev thinks she’s good—’

      ‘She must be good,’ Derwent finished. ‘But I’ve got the go-ahead to search the other areas of the house, as long as we don’t get in her way, and as long as we’re careful.’

      ‘I always am.’ I took a pair of shoe covers and handed another set to Georgia. ‘Put them on.’

      She did as she was told, but I was aware of her looking from me to Derwent and back again while she did it. I wondered what she’d been told about us. I wasn’t sure what the current rumours were. I knew the truth, which was that there had never been anything romantic between me and Detective Inspector Josh Derwent. And with that in mind …

      ‘How’s Melissa?’

      ‘Fine,’ Derwent said shortly.

      ‘How’s Thomas? Does he like the new house?’

      His face softened. ‘Yeah. Loves it.’

      ‘You spent your holiday moving house?’ Georgia said.

      ‘Some of it. Some of it in Portugal.’

      ‘Whereabouts?’

      Instead of answering, Derwent cleared his throat. I could tell that he didn’t want to talk about his personal life any more. He was infinitely protective of the ready-made family that he’d acquired eight months earlier: his girlfriend Melissa Pell and her son Thomas, who was just four. Thomas was Derwent’s greatest fan and the feeling was absolutely mutual. And I knew Derwent didn’t even want to think about them in a house that stank of death, let alone say their names.

      ‘I take it the helicopter didn’t find a body for us.’ I used my back-to-business tone of voice and caught the edge of a look from Georgia. Joyless was the kindest word she would use to describe me, I guessed. Then again, I wasn’t sure how much fun she had expected in a murder investigation team.

      ‘It didn’t find anything,’ Derwent said. ‘We had a dog here for a bit, but even his handler said he was fucking useless. He found some fox shit, if you’re interested in seeing that.’

      ‘I can live without it.’

      ‘What did you find out?’

      ‘Not a huge amount. There’s a perfect local suspect, though.’

      He grunted. ‘There always is.’

      ‘He doesn’t seem to fit the bill anyway.’

      ‘Go on.’ Derwent was listening closely as I told him about Oliver Norris and his suspicions about William Turner.

      ‘I was more interested in what he said about Kate Emery.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘She had male visitors when her daughter was away. Mr Norris noticed.’

      ‘What sort of male visitors?’

      ‘Mr Norris thought they were misbehaving,’ I said primly.

      ‘Professional or amateur misbehaviour?’

      ‘That I don’t know. Yet.’

      ‘If you want to join me in the lady’s bedroom, we can have a look,’ Derwent said with something approaching a leer.

      ‘Can’t wait,’ I said briskly, knowing that Georgia was still trying – and doubtless failing – to get a read on our relationship. ‘I should ask Oliver Norris if he saw anything suspicious when he came over to fix Kate’s dripping tap.’

      ‘Did you think Norris was watching Kate? Or Chloe?’ Georgia asked. ‘I thought you were implying that with some of your questions.’

      ‘I don’t know. Some people are nosy neighbours. Everyone likes to gossip. And Chloe is good friends with his daughter, after all.’ I shrugged. ‘It could be weird that he knows so much about the family’s comings and goings, or it could be second nature to him to know what’s going on in his neighbourhood. I don’t know him well enough yet to say either way.’

      ‘But you don’t like him,’ Derwent said.

      ‘I didn’t say that.’

      He grinned at me and I knew I’d given it away, somehow, to him at any rate. But then, he knew me better than most.

      ‘So you haven’t managed to find us a body,’ I said. It was always better to attack than defend, with Derwent.

      ‘I tried.’

      ‘We don’t even know who we’re looking for.’

      ‘Kate Emery.’ He handed me a photograph that he’d liberated from somewhere in the house: a close-up of a smiling woman with shortish fair hair. She was squinting into the sun, her eyes screwed up, her smile strained. It wasn’t a picture I would have chosen to frame but she looked outdoorsy and cheerful. I knew better than to assume she was either, based on a single photograph. ‘I still can’t tell you if she’s a suspect or a victim,’ Derwent added. ‘Kev says they’ll hurry on the DNA.’

      ‘As it stands,’ Georgia said thoughtfully, ‘we don’t even know if it’s a murder, do we?’

      Derwent turned to look at her. ‘Yeah. We definitely shouldn’t leap to any conclusions. It could have been an accident. Chopping vegetables or something, nicked herself, dripped a bit of blood on the floor while she was looking for a plaster, as you do …’

      ‘No, well, not that.’ Georgia’s cheeks were red.

      ‘Maybe she tried to kill herself and just kept missing her wrists. After the tenth or eleventh time she got bored and went to find a tall building to jump off. Is that more likely?’

      ‘It’s possible,’ I said mildly. ‘Not the way you’ve described it, but it happens. When I was a response officer I turned up at a scene that looked like an attempted murder. The guy had awful injuries, but they were actually self-inflicted.’

      ‘Spoilsport,’ Derwent said. ‘So we’ll leave suicide as a possibility because – what did you say you were called?’

      ‘Georgia. Georgia Shaw.’

      ‘Because DC Shaw thinks it’s feasible that someone did this to themselves. And then wandered off to dig their own grave, I suppose.’

      I was lukewarm on Georgia Shaw but even so, I winced. I’d been on the receiving end of Derwent’s sarcasm enough times to know that it stung. I’d also worked with Derwent for long enough to know that he had formed an opinion of Georgia already, and there was precious little she could do about it for now.

      ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Here’s what I think we should do. Georgia, I want you to get a SOCO to go over Norris’s car, especially the boot. Make sure he wasn’t moving a body around, not shifting garden rubbish. If you find anything suspicious, tell me, obviously. Don’t give him the keys back yet, even if there isn’t anything.’

      ‘You want to make him sweat,’ Derwent said.

      ‘I don’t mind if he’s a bit on edge, put it that way.’ I turned back to Georgia. ‘Then house-to-house. Find out if anyone else saw Kate Emery after Wednesday when Chloe left for her dad’s house, or if Norris was the only one. Ask if they saw anything

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